Crab legs sparked a brawl at a buffet. A day later and hundreds of miles away, it happened again.

[dalton99a]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/08/crab-legs-sparked-brawl-buffet-day-later-hundreds-miles-away-it-happened-again/

Crab legs sparked a brawl at a buffet. A day later and hundreds of miles away, it happened again.
By Kyle Swenson
March 8 at 5:08 AM

When the crab legs hit the buffet line, it’s every eater for themselves.

A longtime staple of all-you-can-eat and Chinese buffets, crab legs don’t usually last long when a fresh butter-glowing batch appears beneath those plastic sneeze guards. There’s even a genre of YouTube videos devoted to documenting hungry eaters picking clean a new crab-leg serving, metal tongs battling one another for every last leg.

“Mostly the customers argue [over] the crab legs because when the crab legs come out people just rush and take them,” a buffet manager recently told the New York Post. “If we have a few guests when they come out, after maybe one or two minutes [the crab legs are] gone.”

But the Hobbesian scramble — blink and those crab legs are kicked — has recently spiraled into flying fists, general mayhem, and 911 calls.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Ban crab legs. NT

[getagrip_already]

2. they aren't even that good.....

usually tough and stringy. I don't even bother with them at a buffet.

Some people just have to have something so nobody else gets it.

[utopian]

3. Too much work for too little payoff, imo

And messy to boot.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. Yes, all of that.

The damned things are ubiquitous. You'd think people would be tired of them by now. I'm certainly not going to go to a place to eat where I have to fight for my meal. These people are acting like dogs going at a steak.

[Blue_Tires]

15. +1000

[jcgoldie]

4. Crab legs turn people into cattle

Back when I was in college during the summer I worked nights for awhile cleaning on a riverboat casino. They had a restaurant that had an "all-you-can-eat" crab leg special every Wednesday. OMFG Wednesday night the floors looked like somebody crushed crabs all day in a commercial corn grinder and threw them everywhere with a manure spreader. They were on the ceiling the walls the windows...it was like a job cleaning out a feedlot.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. I worked in food and beverage for about 20 years.

I met some awesome people, but I would never go back to doing that. I'll do just about anything else but that.

[llmart]

7. Reminds me of the episode on "Grace and Frankie"...

where all the old folks are trying to cross the street to get to the all you can eat crab leg buffet.

Anyone who's seen the episode will know what I'm talking about. Pretty hilarious.

[trev]

11. I posted the same thing

before reading yours.

[llmart]

16. I cracked up at how they'd get half way across the street and the light would change.

[trev]

19. It was a good episode.

[dameatball]

8. When I was a kid my family would sometimes go to a well known buffet. My dad always ordered off the

plate menu. It took me a few years but eventually I understood why.

[janx]

9. I just looked at some of those buffet videos.

What the hell causes people to behave like this? God, and they're doing it in front of children.

[trev]

10. Well, that explains

the episode on Grace and Frankie where the characters had this obsession over crab legs. I didn't understand the point until now.

[Brother Buzz]

12. Was Homer, the remorseless eating machine, there?

[janx]

13. LOL This guy stands near the buffet filming, knowing what is going to happen when

the crab legs arrive.

And KIDS are the worst offenders. No physical fights, but it's still disgusting.

[BannonsLiver]

14. As John Mellencanp once opined: "Ain't that America"

I’ve been all over the world and occasionally see the pig trough buffets elsewhere but on the whole the buffet culture is uniquely American.

[rockfordfile]

17. lol that one guy in the back looks like Roger Stone?

[Beacool]

18. Some people behave like animals at a trough at buffets.

When I visit a friend in Reading, PA her favorite place to eat is a Chinese buffet near her house. She likes the crab legs, but I can't be bothered. They go fast, but I've never seen a fight break out over them. My favorite thing to eat there is their Mongolian grill, where they make it fresh to order.